New Truck to Help Brooklyn Park Police Monitor Distracted Driving
With traffic fatalities on the rise in Minnesota, Brooklyn Park police will soon have a new tool to help them crack down on distracted driving.
“Distracted driving is a huge issue,” said Brooklyn Park police Inspector Elliot Faust. “You can drive down any one of these roads and look over and probably see somebody texting or FaceTiming or, you know, taking photos. I mean you name it, people are doing it.”
To help enforce distracted driving laws, Brooklyn Park is adding a new Ford F-150 to its fleet of vehicles.
The truck allows officers to sit at a higher vantage point, which makes it easier to see if drivers are distracted, not wearing their seat belt, or engaging in other dangerous behavior.
An example of the Ford F-150 that Brooklyn Park Police will use to catch distracted drivers. This is the truck belonging to the Richfield Police Dept.
Brooklyn Park is one of nine law enforcement agencies to receive a grant from the Minnesota Department of Public Safety Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) to help purchase the vehicle. All told, OTS is awarding $642,235 in grants to those nine law enforcement agencies for these vehicles.
“We’ve had some very tragic motor vehicle crashes in this city,” Faust said. :Some that I’ve been on myself, and those are really, really difficult. The loss of life because somebody is so selfish enough to pull their phone out and can’t pay attention to the responsibility that comes with driving on the road, something needs to be done.”
State officials say traffic fatalities are up more than 61 percent compared to the same time last year (84 fatalities in 2024 compared to 52 fatalities in 2023), and distracted driving contributes to an average of 29 deaths a year.
Related: Brooklyn Park Uses Incentives to Fill Police Officer Ranks
